Mark Wahlberg to Resurrect John Grisham (Cinematically)

It's been years - nearly a decade - since someone turned a John Grisham novel into a movie, and the last one was 2004's 'Christmas with the Kranks.' But for a while there - with novels like 'The Firm' and 'A Time to Kill' - Grisham was the hot airplane read. And now Mark Wahlberg is in talks to star and produce a version of the John Grisham novel 'The Partner.'

This project was sitting around for a while, as John Lee Hancock was attached at one point, but he has moved on to - as we reported yesterday - 'Saving Mr. Banks.' But Wahlberg and his producing partner Stephen Levinson are looking the project over strongly - according to Variety.

Grisham's 'The Firm' was recently turned into a television show, but it has not gotten much traction, and was bumped around NBC's schedule. That's par for the course with many NBC shows these days. Wahlberg courted some Oscar attention earlier in his career, and he's worked with some great directors, but he's only been nominated for 'The Departed.' Though the Grisham novels only led to some actor nominations, this looks to just be "good pulp" as the plot of the novel is described thusly (by Collider):

“a young partner in a prominent law firm who fakes his own death to steal a fortune from his company before starting a new life in Brazil.”

Okay then. It will be interesting to see if Wahlberg plays the young lawyer, as that seems outside his range at this point.